


A Work In Progress

by jouissant



Series: A Work In Progress [1]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Asphyxiation, Breathplay, Chastity Device, Dom/sub, Established Relationship, Face-Fucking, M/M, Nipple Clamps, Orgasm Denial, Verbal Humiliation, spitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Chris is in chastity, and there's a learning curve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Medeafic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/gifts).



> Repost from the kink meme. I'm sticking this here in the interest of having everything in one place, and because I'm planning to make this a "continued adventures of Chris, Zach, and Chris's poor trapped dick" kind of a situation. STAY TUNED!

Chris was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Zach.

Zach had been largely silent since he got home a few hours earlier. He’d dropped his keys in the little bowl they kept in the entryway and scanned the foyer, letting his eyes fall on Chris standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Chris in his threadbare white shirt and ripped jeans, feet bare. Zach had looked him up and down and smiled indulgently, and Chris’s dick had twitched. He’d swallowed, trying to quell the wash of desire that rolled over him. He had to be careful not to let that look of Zach’s mean too much.

He’d been fooled before, after all.

In the bedroom, after dinner—

(“Sit,” Zach had said. Then: “Open,” and then he’d spooned a bowlful of tomato soup into Chris’s mouth one bite at a time, alternating soup with bites of bread and butter, sips of wine. He’d gotten soup on a finger and Chris had made to lean in and clean it off, but Zach had only chuckled and moved his hand away, wiping it on a tea towel instead.)

“I have some work to do,” Zach said. “Why don’t you sit there and wait for me to finish.”

“Okay,” Chris said.

His head felt funny, the way it always did on nights like these, buzzy and kind of alternately ponderous and helium-light. He felt overheated, like he’d been out in the sun too long. Zach was still dressed for work, dressed for a day of meetings. “The boring part,” he always called it, though Chris thought he secretly enjoyed huddling around conference tables in studio boardrooms, as a thought exercise if nothing else. Chris watched the line of Zach’s hair where it faded into the skin at the nape of his neck, watched the place where his skin met a white cotton collar. Zach reached back absently and rubbed his neck, like he could feel Chris looking.

Chris smiled.

He rolled his own neck from side to side. Zach didn’t mind if he moved; that wasn’t the point right now, though sometimes Zach liked to sit and work with Chris standing in the corner, a line drawn at his feet that he wasn’t to stumble across no matter how tired or achy he was, on pain of—something. On pain of more pain.

Zach took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, flipping idly through a stack of paperwork. “You’ve been good lately,” he said, as casually as he might ask after some mundane detail of Chris’s day. He replaced his glasses and spun the desk chair around to face Chris, sprawling back in it to match Chris’s sprawl on the bed. Reflexively, Chris sat up straighter under Zach’s appraising stare. The response seemed to amuse Zach; a ghost of a look played across his face too quickly for Chris to parse, but there was definitely a grin there, a smirk maybe.

Things could go either way, probably.

“Are you thinking about it?”

Chris frowned. He opened his mouth to answer. No, he meant to say. I’m not.

“Uh uh uh,” Zach said, wagging a finger. “Be honest.”

Chris swallowed again. He nodded. “Yes,” he said. 

“Good boy,” Zach said. He kicked off his shoes, loosened his tie and worked it off with one hand. With the other, he undid the hook at the waist of his slacks and tugged the zipper down. Chris got a glimpse of what he was wearing underneath. Boxer briefs, he remembered from this morning. Purple. Zach sighed and stretched his arms over his head, the tails of his shirt coming free of his pants as a result. His belly was taut, paler than his neck and bisected with a line of dark hair. Chris felt a rush of blood to his face, a gush of saliva in his mouth.

 _Like Pavlov’s damn dog_ , he thought. _And that’s Pavlov himself, right over there._

“It’s good that you were honest,” Zach said thoughtfully, like he’d been pondering Chris’s response over the past few minutes of silence. He sighed. “But, see, we talked about this, Chris. And you’ve clearly still got a long way to go.” He gave Chris a long, measured look, like he was assessing him for some set of arcane criteria only Zach knew the details of.

Chris felt a lump rise in his throat at that. He looked away. He might get shit for it, but as with his lack of objection to Chris’s easy bearing on the bed a moment ago, tonight Zach didn’t seem especially wrapped up in details. Chris supposed it was a blessing; Zach could be pretty damn detail oriented when he wanted to be. Now, he kept watching Chris, chewing on his bottom lip pensively. Then he sighed again, spreading his legs a little further apart in the chair and reaching into his pants to carefully free his dick.

Chris couldn’t stifle a sound at the sight of Zach half-hard already, the head of his dick flushed dark with blood. The look Zach gave him then was almost soft, but then it was gone as quickly as the near-smirk from earlier.

“Come over here,” he said, and Chris felt his heart leap in response. He leapt to his feet, but Zach held up his free hand. “No,” he said imperiously, stopping Chris dead in his tracks. “Crawl.”

Chris dropped to his knees and started to make his way over to Zach. He could feel Zach watching him, though he kept his eyes on the floor, watching his hands splay against the pattern of the rug, listening to his jeans drag against the thick felted wool. When he made it over to Zach he let his forehead come to rest against Zach’s knee, and Zach seemed to hesitate for a moment before combing through Chris’s hair with his fingers. They clenched tight, and he tugged backwards so that Chris was forced to look up into his face. The lump in Chris throat seemed to swell. 

“I’m not going to lie,” Zach said. “It’s a little disappointing.”

“I didn’t--"

Zach slapped Chris lightly with his free hand. “Shh,” he said. “I’m talking now.”

Chris nodded, and felt Zach’s fingers in his hair loosen just a bit.

“Because we’ve been working on it for so long, Christopher,” Zach continued. “Haven’t we? And you’ve been so good. Good enough that I thought tonight would be the perfect night for you to get a reward for all your hard work, but now I see that that’s not the right thing to do at all.”

Chris’s shoulders slumped. Zach moved his hand down, cupping Chris’s cheek instead of gripping his hair, keeping their eye contact with a lighter touch now. He smiled at Chris, and Chris, more than anything, wanted to cry.

“Hey,” Zach said. “You still want to do this, right?”

Chris bit at the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper. He nodded again.

“You still like it, knowing that your dick belongs to me? Knowing that every time you wash yourself in the shower, every time you take a piss, every time you see some girl’s ass jiggle in cutoffs on the street and your fucking dick wakes up, that you’re the fucking…steward of my property?”

The corner of Chris’s mouth twitched at that—he’d half expected Zach to mock up some kind of legal contract for the transfer of goods and/or services rendered, but thus far that had yet to happen.

“You can talk now,” Zach said.

“Yes,” Chris said thickly. “I still want it.”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “Of course you do. You do much better with a firm hand, Pine. Or so I’ve noticed. That’s why I think you’ll be so good at this. I think you’ll forget you even know how to come.” He worked his dick the rest of the way out of his pants and traced the head along Chris’s cheek, leaving a thread of precome in its wake.

“You make me so hard,” Zach said. “You wanna suck me off?”

“Yeah,” Chris said.

“Yeah?” Zach said, imitating. It usually pissed Chris off, hearing him do that, hearing Zach’s voice stretch like taffy into Chris’s own SoCal drawl, all long vowels and slur. He didn’t say anything now, though, just looked up at Zach and raised an eyebrow. Which would, in turn, piss Zach off.

Zach shook his head, smirking at Chris in earnest now. “Jesus fuck. You are really cruising for it, baby. This is not how I thought tonight would go, I just wanna go on record. Now open your fucking mouth.” 

Chris took a deep breath through his nose and did it. Zach took hold of his hair again and yanked, taking advantage of Chris’s resultant gasp to feed his dick roughly inside, wincing a little at the rasp of Chris’s teeth. “I told you to open up,” he said, pulling harder on Chris’s hair. The pain tripped some wire in Chris, defused his prior irritation and made him want to sigh, to close his eyes and give himself over to whatever Zach had in store.

“That’s right,” Zach said. “You’re so good when you want to be. That’s why I can’t tell—ah!—why I can’t tell if this recalcitrance is an actual issue or if you’re just being lazy.”

Chris hummed a protest, and Zach laughed darkly. He held fast to the back of Chris’s head as he carefully got up out of the chair, standing over Chris and working his way closer so that his legs were practically trapping Chris’s head and his balls rested against Chris’s chin. Chris’s nose brushed Zach’s belly and he fought valiantly with his gag reflex, breathing carefully through his nose, but just as he began to think he could handle it Zach jerked his hips and made Chris’s throat spasm around his dick.

“Don’t fucking puke your dinner up on me,” Zach snapped. “That’s a mess you sure as hell don’t want to have to clean up, and so help me, Chris, I’ll make you do it. I didn’t spend all that time training that slutty mouth of yours just to have you regress in this department too.”

Chris moaned. His face felt hot again, Zach’s obvious disapproval calling up a host of warring emotions: anger, shame, desire. Desire to please, sure, but also a pulse-pounding appreciation for Zach as he was like this.

A firm hand, Zach said. If that was true, if Chris really was better off being handled that way, Zach was better off doing the handling. We’re symbiotic, Chris had said once, mumbling the words against Zach’s shoulder in bed, afterwards. The smile he’d gotten from Zach in return had been worth a thousand orgasms. Chris really, really wished he’d taken a picture.

“You’re wandering off,” Zach said. “ I thought you were sucking my dick, not just fucking around. If I want a middling, distracted blowjob I can go find some coked up twink at the bar, can’t I?” He jerked Chris’s head up. “Can’t I?”

”Mmmm.” Chris tried to nod as best he could, succeeding only in tightening Zach’s grip on his hair. Zach heaved a put-upon sigh and withdrew, leaving Chris’s mouth slack and numb, his jaw sore. Chris reached up and rubbed at it, but Zach grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet.

“You going out?” Chris said, glancing at the door. He was thinking of Zach’s bar comment, but the slightly glazed way Zach blinked at him before he spoke again indicated the threat had been momentarily forgotten.

“You’d like that, huh?” Zach said finally. “Give you a break. No way, Pine. Get your shit off and get on the bed. I want to play with what’s mine.”

Chris hazarded a glance down at the crotch of his jeans, where his dick was making its presence known pretty much unmistakably. He huffed a sigh and undid the buttons of his fly one by one, feeling Zach’s eyes on his fingers. There weren’t any rules about getting hard, although Zach had intimated that there were certain bells and whistles out there in sexland that could take away the option altogether. Chris wasn’t sure he wanted to know about that. He thought it would be easy, if he was being honest. He thought that he could just…adjust the way he thought about things, but clearly that was easier imagined than done.

“Take your shirt off,” Zach said, sounding agitated. Chris stripped the t-shirt off over his head and slid his jeans down off of his ass, pausing before he took off his briefs, just because he knew Zach liked to look.

 _See?_ he thought. _You said it yourself. I can be good when I want to be._

“I know what you’re doing,” Zach said. “And it’s not going to work.”

Chris snorted. “I’m not doing anything,” he said. He hooked his thumbs under the waistband of his briefs and pulled them off, slowly. Because he was good, but he wasn’t that good, and because if Zach had consequences on the brain Chris might as well go for broke.

Zach crossed the room in what seemed like one long stride, getting up in Chris’s personal space and backing him up until the backs of his legs hit the side of the bed. Chris put up his hands without thinking as the bed behind him threatened his balance, but Zach caught him around the wrists and kept backing up until Chris fell backwards onto the mattress with a soft thud. Zach straddled him, taking hold of Chris’s jaw with one hand and digging his fingers into Chris’s cheeks with just shy of bruising force.

“You know, you could have convinced me,” Zach said in a low voice. “You were off to such a promising start that I said to myself, Zach, Christopher’s tried so hard this last month, he deserves something nice. Even if all he’s done since I got home is think about getting off.”

“It’s not my fault,” Chris protested, speech a little distorted by Zach’s grip. “You…the way you looked at me when you came in, and then dinner…it’s not my fault, Zach!”

Zach rolled his eyes. “You definitely doth protest too much,” he said. He reached between Chris’s legs and squeezed, too hard. Chris winced.

“You’re missing the point,” Zach went on. “We talked about this. The point is not an endurance test, Chris. The point is not to pat yourself on the back for how many days you’ve gone without blowing your load. The point is that it’s not your load to blow anymore. The point is that this”--he squeezed Chris’s dick again— “belongs to me.”

He made a face, casting about the room as if he was looking for something. “Look,” he said, clearly seizing on something. “What’s that over there?”

“Um,” Chris said. “Your banjo?”

“Very good. Let’s employ metaphor, shall we? That is my banjo. How much time do you think I spend thinking about my banjo when I’m not playing it?”

“Uh…” Chris said, shrugging. “I…not very much time?”

Zach snorted. “Give the boy a prize,” he said. “That thing sits over there against the wall and waits for me to play it, whenever I want and for as long as I want. Maybe I practice for five minutes and get bored with it, or maybe I spend a weekend learning some tricky piece of music, working my fingers bloody. It depends.”

“O..okay,” Chris said.

“What does it depend on, Christopher?” Zach asked, with the air of a particularly unimpressed substitute teacher.

“On…on what you want.”

“Exactly. Now, how much time do you spend thinking about my banjo?”

Chris frowned. “My dick is the banjo, isn’t it?”

“How much time, Chris?”

“Ugh,” Chris said. “Fuck, fine. I never think about your stupid banjo, Zachary.”

“Aw,” Zach said, fisting Chris’s dick almost tenderly. “Don’t talk about my banjo that way. But you’re on the right track, baby. This right here? This is mine to do what I want with. This has nothing to do with you unless I want it to. Got it?”

Chris shuddered in spite of himself. His mouth was dry. “Yes,” he said. “Yeah, I…I got it.”

“Good,” Zach said. “And you’d do well to forget about it, because after tonight it’s not going to have anything to do with you for a very, very long time.” Zach slid off of Chris in one fluid motion, slipping out of his pants and underwear and unbuttoning his shirt. He folded them neatly and set them on the floor next to the bed. “Now,” he said. “Like I said before, I’m in the mood to play. But no more talking. You’ve run your mouth enough tonight, I think.” 

***

A few days later, Zach came home from work carrying a box under his arm. The box was smallish and nondescript, and when Zach handed it to Chris the address label bore no clues to its origin or contents, other than the presence of a generic post office box as the return. And it was addressed to him.

“I didn’t order anything,” Chris said dumbly. Even as he said it, staring down at the plain brown cardboard, he knew what Zach’s face must look like, the affectionate yet somehow also infuriating expression he wore whenever Chris stated the painfully obvious.

“No,” Zach said. “I did.”

“Oh,” said Chris, not feeling any less dumb.

Zach took the box back from him, turning it over to find the seal and tearing at it to get the package open. As he did so, Chris thought he detected a hint of impatience that wasn’t usually part of Zach’s MO. Zach slid out a well-wrapped bundle, swaddled in bubble wrap. He handed it over to Chris to finish opening with an unreadable expression that swiftly morphed into a wide grin when Chris removed the wadded plastic to reveal—

“What is it?” he asked, although as he turned the object over in his hand he admitted to himself what he’d suspected as soon as Zach came in with the box. Maybe not the specifics, but the general gist to be sure. Chris knew what this was.

It was a cage. And it wasn’t for Zach’s banjo.

“After our little chat the other night, I got to thinking that this whole process might be a little easier for you if you had a prop.” 

Chris couldn’t help the little stab of disappointment he felt at the words. Easy. Zach didn’t usually like things to be easy for Chris, and Chris had learned to love Zach’s expectations, the way he so often doubted his ability to meet them and the soaring pride he felt on the occasions when he managed to. The idea of Zach cutting him a break…it troubled Chris. He frowned, casting his eyes down at the floor.

“Hey,” Zach said, stepping closer and crooking a finger under Chris’s chin, tilting his face up so their eyes met. Chris tried to move his head away and Zach adjusted his grip so he held Chris’s chin between thumb and forefinger. “Hey,” he said again, warningly. “What’s going on?”

Chris sighed. “If it’s easy—"

Zach laughed softly. “You’re hard on yourself,” he said. “Makes my job easier sometimes, but then I realize you’re not cutting yourself a break. Maybe ‘easier’ was a poor choice of word. It’s a reminder, that’s all. So you remember what we talked about the other day. And you’ll have to remember, won’t you? Because this won’t let you forget it.”

He took the cage back from Chris and held it up so he could see. It looked like a piece of medical equipment, decidedly unsexy.

“It’s silicone,” Zach offered. “So you can sterilize it. There are prettier ones out there, metal and stuff, but I don’t know, I thought this one might be appropriate. Can I?”

Chris nodded, and Zach’s hands went straight to his fly. He unbuttoned Chris’s jeans with deft fingers and yanked down the zipper, working the jeans down over Chris’s hips and ass and gesturing for him to step out of them. Chris looked askance at his briefs, half-expecting his dick to get hard for the occasion, but it remained compliant save a cursory twitch of anticipation as Zach took it carefully in one hand. Once the cage was on, Chris could see why Zach chose it. It was plain, utilitarian almost, boring milky white in color with holes along the shaft, presumably for breathability. It was simultaneously the least hot and the hottest thing Chris had ever seen. It was as if he had an affliction and needed some specialized medical device to cure it. He supposed that wasn’t so far from the truth.

He felt a little pulse of blood, and was instantly ten times more aware of the smooth plastic cradling him there. But he was also intimately aware of why it was there in the first place, and he felt his face warm with the knowledge of it. He moaned, high and uncomfortable like a whine, and he closed his eyes and blindly groped for Zach.

“Shh,” Zach said, gripping Chris around the bicep and sliding his arm around his waist. “I’ve got you.” He pressed a kiss to Chris’s temple and took up his trapped dick ever so carefully.

“See?” he said. “It’s mine. And I take care of what’s mine, don’t I?”

Chris nodded.

“So when you see this, you’re going to remember that, aren’t you?”

Chris nodded again.

“Open your eyes,” Zach said. “I’ve got something else for you.” 

Chris opened his eyes to Zach’s outstretched palm. In the middle, there was a lock. The lock was silver, and it looked weighty. Chris reached for it without thinking, pausing just before his fingers met the metal and looking up at Zach for permission.

“You can take it,” Zach said.

Chris turned the lock over in his hand. It was small, but definitely substantial. It looked like it was made of actual silver, sterling, and if it was it wasn’t cheap. In the lock was a tiny key, and Chris picked the lock up between thumb and forefinger and turned the key so that the locking mechanism sprung open. He took the key out of the lock and held it out to Zach.

“I guess this is yours,” he said.

Zach bit his lip and nodded, taking the key and turning it over in his hand. With the other, he reached up and undid his necklace, the silver one he always wore. “I’m going to put this here,” he said. “For safekeeping. Is that okay with you?”  
Chris nodded quickly, intrigued by the careful way Zach asked him for permission. There wasn’t typically a whole lot of occasion for that in their lives lately.

“What if people see?” Chris asked on impulse.

Zach shrugged. “I hope they see,” he said. “I don’t know what most people would think. Most normal people, I mean.” He smiled wryly. “I hope they’d realize it was something…something really important to me. Even if they didn’t know exactly what.” He slid the key along the chain and put it back around his neck.

Chris felt himself flush again. It was as close to a declaration as there’d been in a long time, especially bound up in all his stuff they did. The I love yous were always for afterwards, Zach kissing Chris’s cheeks with an almost frantic air, lips warm over the tracks of Chris’s tears.

“Zach—"

“Yeah,” Zach said. “I need to finish what I started, huh?” He knelt in front of Chris and slid the lock into the eyelet formed by the cage’s closure, a thick strap encircling Chris’s balls. He closed the lock with a metallic click and got to his feet again, already fiddling with the key against his sternum. When his eyes next met Chris’s, they were hard.

“Get your shirt off,” Zach said.

Chris did, stripping the shirt off over his head. He was naked now, save for the cage. His dick throbbed in its bondage. Probably this wasn’t exactly how he was supposed to be responding. He gasped. “I—"

Zach ran a hand through his hair, letting it flop back over his face with impunity. With the other, he was undoing he buttons on his shirt. He was breathing hard already, like he’d been running. “Yeah?”

“I’m getting hard,” Chris said, swallowing.

“I knew you would,” Zach said. “You’re like a fucking golden retriever when it comes to new shit. But hey, maybe I can help with that.” He reached out and twisted Chris’s nipple viciously. Chris cringed away, not anticipating the pain.

“Jesus, Zach!”

“That’s what you get for being honest,” Zach said infuriatingly. 

Zach finished undressing down to a pair of black cotton briefs, palming his obviously hard dick through the fabric.

“Fuck,” Chris said, his dick throbbing against the cage, unable to fill all the way. He shifted from foot to foot a little uncomfortably.

“You wish,” Zach said, grinning. “Now go get your clamps.”

Chris let his mouth fall open, watched Zach look him in the eye and ape the gesture exaggeratedly. “Shut your mouth, Pine,” Zach said. “What, you actually thought I was going to make this easy on you? Ye of little faith.” He jerked his head toward the bedroom. “Now go.”

Chris gave Zach a last desperate look before turning and going into the bedroom. The cage was an unfamiliar weight between his legs, not much but not insubstantial either, and each step served to drive the point home. _His_ , Chris thought. _His, his, his._

Chris hated the clamps. He sometimes exaggerated his dislike of certain toys, certain acts for Zach’s benefit, though he didn’t believe for a second that Zach was taken in by it. But the clamps…there was no pretending necessary with the clamps. Chris’s nipples were sensitive as hell, which was part of it—even a not-so-hard pinch hurt enough to make Chris buzzy with endorphins if Zach kept at it too long. Of course, Zach had cataloged and capitalized on this fact early and often in their relationship, until the day he brought out the clamps and Chris safe worded the second they came into view.

“Red, red, fucking red,” he’d blurted, clutching at his pecs protectively. “What the fuck, those look like pit vipers.”

Zach had inspected one thoughtfully. “I guess I can see it,” he’d said, before putting them away again and soothing Chris with tongue and just a little bit of teeth as a reminder.

They’d worked up to the clamps slowly, Zach goading Chris into trying again via various appeals to his competitive side. Chris knew that was the angle he was working now; Chris’s professed desire not to have this be easy had bitten him in the ass just as surely as those goddamn Clovers were about to bite other parts of him. 

“Dammit,” he muttered. It fucking figured. Zach had probably had the clamps in mind before he’d even opened up the package. Chris’s dick twitched again. “Don’t you start,” he said.

He fetched the clamps from the depths of the toy box and returned with them to the living room, where Zach was lounging on the couch idly stroking his dick.

“Took you awhile.”

“I, uh, had some trouble finding them,” Chris said.

“Uh huh. You just bought yourself five more minutes dragging ass, though, so it doesn’t really matter what your excuse is. Now c’mere.”

Chris whined a little, but he did as Zach said, moving across the living room to stand in front of the couch.

“Kneel,” Zach said, and Chris went down on his knees in one fluid motion, scooting in between Zach’s legs. Zach reached out and carded his fingers through Chris’s hair, and Chris let his eyes fall shut.

“Good,” Zach said, sitting up and trailing his hands down over Chris’s chest. “Give me the clamps,” he said. Chris took a breath, but once again he did as he was told.

Zach sighed happily once in possession of the toy, passing it from hand to hand, letting the heavy length of chain that connected each clamp pool in his open palm. “I love these,” he said, watching Chris’s face. The links of chain made a noise as they shifted; Chris thought it sounded like a hiss.

“What do you want me to do, whine and cry and tell you how much I hate them?” Chris said.

“I mean, as appealing as that is, no,” Zach drawled. “I want you to be quiet while I have some fun. I’ve had a long day and the last thing I want to hear is you bitching about the way I choose to handle _my possessions_ being too hard for you after all.”

Chris clenched his teeth and bowed his head, looking at the floor. The tiles in the living room were saltillo, big and smooth and soft orange in color, and he could just see them peeking out from under the rug that ran up to the legs of the couch, mercifully padding his knees. He took a deep breath in and let it out through his nose. He nodded.

Zach took hold of his face and moved it so that their eyes met, staring hard at Chris. “Well,” he said. “Now that we’re on the same page.” He thumbed one of Chris’s nipples, then without pretense he brandished the first clamp, opened it, then let it close over Chris’s tender flesh.

He almost lost it at that right out of the gate. He screwed his eyes shut and bit down on the inside of his cheek. Fuck! he thought, so vehemently that he thought he must have spoken aloud.

“Yeah,” Zach breathed. “Hurts, doesn’t it, baby? You ready for the other one?”

That question was obviously rhetorical, because Zach wasted no time clamping Chris on the other side. Chris sucked in a breath and swayed on his knees. The clamps really did feel like snakebites, bolts of pain that were sharp at first and then leveled out into an exquisite burn that was only slightly better than the initial contact. He arched his chest toward Zach, hoping for anything from him, some touch to counter the blazing pain in his chest.

Zach hooked a finger over the chain linking the two clamps, the arc of silver now hanging heavily between Chris’s nipples. Chris moaned, and if he’d been allowed to talk he’d sure as shit have begged. Zach wouldn’t have listened, though, and he didn’t listen now. He tugged, pulling Chris forward inexorably, giving him no choice but to shuffle forward on his knees as far as he could go before his belly and his entrapped dick met the front of the couch. Then and only then did Zach lean in and kiss Chris, a kiss so tender it was almost mocking in counterpoint.

“Not thinking about your dick now, are you?” he said afterwards. Chris, of course, did not reply.

“I am, though,” Zach said, reaching down to finger the perforated silicone curving sinuously over the shaft. 

“I like thinking about it like this, all wrapped up for me, ready for me whenever I want.” He slid down on the couch, gripping his own dick at the base and beginning to jerk it slowly. Chris watched him do it. He’d always appreciated the way Zach did that, both to himself and to Chris. He fucked like he knew what he was doing, like he always had. Chris tried to picture an awkward, proto-Zach sometimes. He must have existed at some point along the line, but Chris couldn’t imagine how. Zach was toying with himself now, teasing, the way he did when he wanted to make it last.

“How long?” Zach asks, as if he was asking Chris something impossibly mundane, like what temperature he should preheat the oven to. “A month? Three months? Maybe we should just go for a year,” he said, pausing to watch Chris’s face. “Yeah, a year would do it, even for you.”

Chris schooled himself into blankness, even as the idea of not getting off for twelve long months spun around in his brain. Zach was throwing around the big numbers to try and get a rise out of him; Chris was pretty sure of that. But the more he thought about it, the more appealing it sounded. Or maybe he should say the less unappealing, because any way you sliced it not coming was not coming, and not coming was almost never optimal.

 _Except when it is_ , Chris thought. Because by some miracle of psychology and sex, Zach the two of them had managed to make it so on more than one occasion.

He looked Zach in the eyes and licked his lips.

Zach snorted. “You think I’m fucking with you,” he said. “Okay.”

He dropped his dick, reaching out and snagging the chain with his index finger again. He twisted it slowly but tightly so it began to cut off his circulation, the tip of his finger purpling as Chris watched. But then he had more pressing concerns, because Zach was pulling him forward by the nipples despite the fact that Chris’s body was already flush with the couch. The pain in his nipples, which had ebbed to a dull but constant throb, roared to life again and shot white-hot through his chest. Tears sprang to Chris’s eyes. He tried furiously to blink them back before Zach could see, but Zach, as ever, appeared omniscient in all matters pertaining to Chris.

“I wonder what would happen if we went for a year,” Zach said pensively. “What do you think? Do you think I’d forget about you? Sometimes I get distracted. I have a lot on my plate, after all. And what makes you think that you’re enough to keep me interested for that long if all of you’s not in proper working order?”

He grabbed the cage again, using it to pull Chris closer by the dick as well as the nipples. The silicone was smooth, but the rough way Zach was handling it made the straighter, firmer edges press into Chris’s skin uncomfortably. Chris gasped, and Zach smirked at him.

“It’s a good thing you’ve still got a couple of perfectly serviceable holes,” he said matter-of-factly. “And it’s not like you need your dick to get fucked.” He nodded decisively, getting to his feet so abruptly and so heedless of Chris’s personal space that he almost knocked him over. He yanked on Chris’s chain.

“Up,” he said. “Get on the couch and show me your ass.” 

Chris sucked in a breath, climbing up onto the couch and leaning over the back as quickly as he could. Zach was breathing heavily. Chris turned and looked back at him, wanting to catch a glimpse of his face, of the glassy-eyed, transported expression he knew he’d see. It always fascinated him, the place Zach went when he got like this. It was reassuring sometimes, to know he wasn’t the only one who got a little…altered.

They locked eyes for a split second, then Zach tore his gaze away and smacked Chris hard on the inner thighs, his palm ricocheting between them. “Face forward,” Zach snapped. “And spread your legs; I want to take a look at you.”

Chris obeyed. He felt rather than saw Zach come closer, leaning an elbow across the small of Chris’s back like Chris was a piece of furniture, an extension of the couch. He spread Chris’s cheeks roughly, and Chris’s only warning was a hot breath before Zach sank his teeth in. Chris yelped and jerked forward, brushing his chest against the back of the couch. “Dammit,” he muttered. The words were out before he could stop himself, and instantly Zach was on him, hands in Chris’s hair, yanking his head back and cuffing him across the face.

“No fucking talking,” he said, close enough to send flecks of spittle flying onto Chris’s cheek. Chris poked his tongue along the side of his mouth experimentally, tasting copper and swallowing it down. His face stung; he wondered if it would leave a mark.

Zach seemed unaware of his handiwork, having returned to kneel at Chris’s back, half on and half off the couch. Chris could feel his breath on the bare, exposed skin of his ass, feel Zach spread him again.

“Fuck yes,” Zach said, as if he was talking to himself. “Yeah, who needs your dick when you’ve got an asshole like this.”

Chris heard a lewd, wet-sounding scrape and almost simultaneously felt a hot splat directly on his hole. Zach had spit on him, and now he dragged two fingers through it, spreading it around and pushing it inside Chris cursorily.

Inside the cage, Chris felt his dick twitch; he knew what was coming. Interestingly, it was the first time in what felt like a really long time that he’d considered that particular aspect of his anatomy. Maybe Zach was right; the cage was helping.

Zach moved over Chris on the couch; Chris could feel the rasp of his chest hair against his back and the too-dry nudge of Zach’s dick between his cheeks. “I should just fuck you like this,” Zach said. “It’s only what you deserve, baby.” He sighed, pressing a kiss to Chris’s temple. “But like I said, I take care of what’s mine.” 

He moved away for a second, and when he returned Chris heard the unmistakeable sound of a bottle of lube being uncapped. The sound pricked at him like easy had earlier, and he felt himself frown. But when Zach’s fingers found his hole again they shoved inside him just as carelessly as they had before, and before he knew it he could feel Zach again, lining himself up and pushing inside of Chris, not bothering with anything other than bottoming out right away.

Chris physically shuddered with the effort of containing a moan. He could feel Zach in his guts, and he dropped his head to rest on the back of the couch and smiled. He could feel tears well behind his closed eyelids again. Zach wrapped an arm around him, fondling the chain link of the nipple clamps and pulling on either side, testing their resilience. Chris hissed, and for once Zach seemed inclined to let the outburst slide. He brushed his mouth across the nape of Chris’s neck.

“That’s it,” Zach murmured, taking hold of Chris’s hipbone and digging his fingers in. Chris squirmed in counterpoint, and Zach pulled out halfway, enough that the force of his thrust back in shoved Chris against the couch. He caught himself in time to prevent the worst of the jarring, but he came to realize that somewhere along the line he’d started to sweat, and his skin slid along the leather where his knees and arms braced to take his weight. If he relaxed, if he let himself be held the way the clasp of Zach’s arm seemed to encourage, there would be nothing between Chris and the back of the couch.

“Yeah,” Zach sighed into Chris’s shoulder. “You take it so well for me; you’re so good.”

Chris’s smile widened. He wished he could kiss Zach. Maybe if he turned his head, he could—

He turned back, Zach a blur of dark hair in the corner of his eye. He let his mouth fall open, and in the the end it might have been that miniscule relaxation, that tiny slip, that did him in. Zach reached down in one deft motion and jerked Chris’s left leg back, throwing him forward against the unyielding leather with the full weight of both their bodies behind him.

Chris screamed.

Or he thought that he screamed; he couldn’t actually be certain of it. When he came back to himself Zach was still fucking him, but the waves of pain from his chest made the sensation so distant as to be nearly imperceptible. He could feel warm wetness everywhere. He knew logically that it was sweat, that they were both dripping with it, but some small part of his brain persisted in screeching otherwise.

Abruptly, Zach was clasping at Chris’s shoulder, mouthing along the line of his clavicle as he shuddered against Chris’s back, the hair on his chest a sodden mat. One hand was still half tangled in the clamps and Chris abandoned his mandated silence, banking on the fact that Zach was too far gone to care. Tonight, at least, he was right. The string of curses Chris let fly just seemed to encourage Zach. He dragged his teeth over the soft skin of Chris’s neck and muttered something Chris couldn’t quite make out, driving into Chris so hard that he fell against the back of the couch again, stiffening against Zach reflexively. Before, Zach would have coaxed him through, matched the hot pain of the clamps with sweetness, stroked Chris’s dick and fucked him solicitously. But tonight he nipped at Chris’s arm one last time and let himself slide free, laughing darkly to himself. Chris felt Zach’s fingers back at his hole, and Zach shoved what felt like half his hand inside.

“Jesus Christ, you’re a fucking mess,” Zach said, wiping his fingers off on the inside of Chris’s left thigh. He smacked at Chris’s stomach with his cleaner hand.

“Turn around.”

Chris did, trying to ignore the slickness beginning to work its way out of his body, mingling with the sweat and lube and who knew what else on the rich brown leather. He flopped back against the back of the couch, suddenly all too aware of his chest again.

Zach was too, which was unfortunate. He reached out and ran his hand over one of Chris’s pecs, leaving a wet smear in its wake. “Mmm, your poor tits,” Zach said. He flicked at Chris’s right nipple, and smirked at the way Chris bit his lip in response. He wondered what it would be like if he really could hold it all in, absorb the pain like some stoic, let it wash over him and away again. Not tonight, though. Tonight, like most nights, Chris was weak and Zach was there to capitalize.

“Looks like it hurts,” Zach said, eyes trained on Chris’s face. “Does it?”

Chris nodded.

“Talk to me,” Zach said. “Tell me.”

There was an edge to his voice; if Chris didn’t know better he’d have sworn Zach hadn’t just come. But the evidence to the contrary was all over Chris now, sticky against the leather. He shifted a little and his skin peeled free of the surface of the couch with a tug of resistance.

“Yeah, it hurts,” Chris said, his voice sounding scratchy and overused despite his efforts at staying quiet. A good scream could rip up a throat pretty effectively, or so Chris had come to learn.

“What’s it feel like?” Zach reached out to cup Chris’s pecs, palms flattening out to tease at the entrapped points of his nipples, throbbing like stand-ins for Chris’s useless dick.

Chris arced at the touch; whether it was away from Zach or towards him he wasn’t sure. “Ah, fuck,” he said. “They’re fucking sore. Gonna bruise, probably.”

Zach grinned wide at that. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, probably.” He reached out and thumbed at Chris’s nipple again, then without warning he grabbed at the clamp and unclipped it, letting it drop.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Chris spat as the pain came roaring back with his restored circulation. “Could’ve fucking warned me.”

“No fun,” Zach said petulantly. “Now give me the other one.” 

Chris screwed his eyes shut and turned away, like that would make it better somehow.

Zach scoffed. “Baby,” he said. “You’ve had way worse. Oh, but I forgot, you hate the clamps so much, don’t you.” He took off the other clamp then, twisting at Chris’s nipple with cruel fingers. The pain blurred Chris’s vision, and he clutched at his chest. The heavy chain had fallen into Chris’s lap over the stark off-white of the cage. He looked up at Zach to see him fiddling with the little key where it fell on his chest. Metal and silicone and skin, Chris thought hazily. He could go for a shower right about now. Then maybe bed. He realized abruptly that he had no idea how much time had passed since Zach got home.

Across from Chris on the couch, Zach had ceased playing with the key. “Up,” he said finally. “You’ve got come all over you; you’re leaking on the couch.”

“You put it there,” Chris grumbled. But he stood up heavily, his dick flopping between his legs far more noticeably than was normal. He swayed back and forth in place experimentally.

Zach was watching him again, eyes dark. He sidled up to Chris, worming an arm around his waist like Chris was some injured athlete he was helping off the field. “I did,” he said, sighing. “Come on, I’ll run you a bath. And then food, once you’re clean.”

Chris nodded, and let Zach walk him in the direction of the bathroom, where he was deposited on the closed toilet seat to watch Zach shower briefly, towel himself off, and fiddle with the jacuzzi settings on the tub.

Chris fingered the cage idly. “Do I take it off?” he asked.

Zach turned, brow furrowed. “I don’t know,” he said. “It can go in the water and everything, that’s how it’s designed. Do you want to take it off?”

Chris found himself brought up short by the question, trying to parse whether or not it was genuine. “Do you want me to take it off?”

“I want your dick in that cage for the rest of our lives, Pine,” Zach said lightly. “But I suppose a bath is but a hiccup in the grand scheme of things, so do what you want.” He shrugged, nodding at the tub. “I think that’s ready. You want that leftover grilled chicken for dinner?”

“Yeah. And, um. Some broccoli, or something. I dunno, I probably haven’t been eating enough vegetables lately.”

“Of course,” Zach said. “We’ve got to keep you in peak form, don’t we.” He smiled to himself, like there was another layer to his words that Chris wasn’t privy to. “I’ll find something. Now hop in. I’ll call you when the food’s done.” 

He left then, having given Chris no further direction as to whether or not to remove the cage. Which he couldn’t actually do, come to think of it, because of course Zach had taken the key with him. Chris ran his fingers over the silicone, plucking at the tiny lock. _For the rest of our lives._ The statement stirred something in Chris, but he couldn’t have named it, couldn’t have said if it was desire or hope or unease or something else entirely. He thought about calling Zach back, but in the end he just got into the tub, where he soaped himself up diligently and then sat and stared into space for a very long time. 

After Chris’s bath, dinner was somewhat delayed by Zach’s sudden burning need to get naked again and take inventory of Chris’s body, “to make sure you’ve gotten yourself clean enough,” which apparently could best be ascertained by spreading Chris out on the bed and eating his ass. He didn’t mention the cage, other than a distinct approving look when Chris first got out of the bathroom. But eventually he flung himself off of Chris breathlessly and sprawled on the bed, his mouth and cheeks shining wet with spit and his dick hard. He reached down between Chris and the mattress. Chris groaned and rolled onto his side, and the look Zach gave him then told him everything he needed to know about Zach’s opinion of the cage. 

“You hard?” Zach asked, jerking himself slowly. 

Chris shifted on the bed, wincing at the press of silicone into his skin. “Trying to be,” he said. 

“Feel good?” 

Chris lay back at stared at the ceiling, taking a shuddery breath and letting it out. “Not really.” 

“Hmm,” Zach said. “Why not?” 

Chris shrugged. Zach reached out and ran his fingers through the close-cropped hair at Chris’s temples. “Up here?” he asked. “Or just down there?” 

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Both, probably. I… wasn’t supposed to think about it, you said. When you do stuff like that to me, it—I think about it.” 

“I just fucked your ass, though. You weren’t complaining then.” 

Chris blinked, a little dizzied by the fact that he was apparently upset about sex feeling too good. “Yeah, with the fucking snakebite clamps on. So, you know. Not a huge problem downtown.” 

“Well,” Zach said. “That’s the thing, right? You’re mine, and if I want to fuck your ass I get to fuck your ass, and if I want to eat your ass I get to do that too. That’s the point.” He bit his lip, apparently mulling over what he wanted to say next. “So whatever _feelings_ that stirs up for you don’t really matter much, if you want to know the truth.” 

Chris let that sink in. It was peculiar logic, but logic just the same. Sure, there was hurt, as his ego railed against being told it didn’t matter. But past all that, Chris thought, lay the promise of a strange kind of peace. He licked his lips, and Zach moved in to kiss him on the mouth. 

“How about this,” Zach said. “I’m hard again. How about you let me finish eating you, and then I let you come. And then we go out there and eat our dinner. Would you like that?” 

“I’m all clean now, though,” Chris said softly. This fact seemed important somehow. 

“I don’t give a shit,” Zach said, and kissed him again. He sat up, reaching back for the clasp of his necklace. He took hold of Chris with careful hands and undid the lock, easing his dick gently from the cage. Chris found himself fighting the urge to tell him not to, although according to what Zach just said that was beside the point anyway.

“I’m glad you kept it on,” Zach said, replacing the necklace as he spoke. “It made me so happy, seeing you come out of the bathroom all clean and put away for me.” 

Chris’s face was hot. “Really?” 

“Yeah. I’m lucky, you know? Really lucky that you’re mine.”

“Do you want to kiss me again?” Chris asked, drunk with feeling.

“I do,” Zach said. “I want to kiss you. But I want to eat you first. I want you to taste yourself on me.” 

Chris shuddered. Zach had a nasty streak a mile wide, and he could smile so winningly at Chris, the way he was now. In these moments Chris knew he’d promise Zach anything. In these moments, he knew how utterly, utterly fucked he was. 

“Please,” Chris said. 

Zach shoved at him, an entreaty to scoot further up the bed and lean back against the pillows. Once he had, Zach settled between his thighs and pried him apart, resuming his earlier ministrations. Released from its bondage, Chris’s dick was free to react, and before long Chris was fully, gloriously hard. 

“You know, I have to say,” Zach slurred, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “You’re quite a sight like that.” He moved over Chris, grasping his chin between sharp fingers and kissing Chris deeply. Chris moaned into Zach’s mouth and moved against him, trying to get his arms around him, press their bodies together. Zach wrenched his mouth away and pinned Chris’s wrists to the bed. 

“What do you want?” he asked. It was a trap; Chris knew it going in. He didn’t care. 

“Your mouth,” he said. “Your fingers.” 

“Mmm,” Zach said. “Okay. But you be good and lie still, and let me take care of you.” 

“Fuck,” Chris said, circling his wrist against Zach’s steel trap fingers. “All right, all right.” 

“Good,” Zach said. He let go of one of Chris’s hands and dropped it to the root of his dick. Then he took Chris into his mouth, the warmth and wetness so stark in comparison to the hard silicone that Chris had to shut his eyes and let his mouth fall open. The noise that came out was dramatic enough to earn Chris a laugh, which translated to an infuriating hum that just made Chris spread his legs wider and push his ass harder into the mattress in an awkward kind of reverse thrust, just to fucking do _something._ He’d fucked Zach’s face exactly once, and hadn’t been able to sit right for the next week as a consequence. Zach slid his fingers up the inside of Chris’s thigh, slipping three into Chris’s slack hole right off the bat. 

“Oh god,” Chris said. “Zach—" 

“Yeah,” Zach said, pulling off. “You like that, don’t you. You want some more?” 

Chris nodded wildly. 

“Of course you do,” Zach said, the way he did when he was just getting warmed up. He loved to talk to Chris, to talk them both over the edge. It wouldn’t take long, Chris thought. Not tonight, not like this. 

Zach pushed in further with searching, stretching fingers, and Chris let himself imagine that he was going to take Zach’s hand. They’d done it once or twice (four times, actually; Chris was absolutely counting), Zach working himself inside at an achingly slow pace, rocking inside of Chris for what felt like hours and refusing to lay a finger on his dick. 

“God, I want my fist in you again,” Zach said then, and Chris smiled at the synchronicity. “Next time I’ll do it with the cage on; I want to see it, want to hold you everywhere.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Chris gasped. 

“Not tonight, though,” Zach said. “I can’t hold out. That’s what you do to me; I blew in your ass not two hours ago, and here I am again.” He laughed darkly, biting at Chris’s leg. “I’m a sick man, Chris. I can’t fucking stop, not with you around.” He drove his fingers in again, twisting, and Chris arched off the bed without conscious thought. 

“Zach,” he said. “I—" 

“I can feel you twitch on me,” Zach said. “S’what your ass does when you come. Do you want to come?” 

Chris nodded frantically, Zach’s voice and his fingers merciless. Chris should feel guilty; he did feel guilty. There was a slick of it overlying his pleasure like oil on water. He ignored it. “Yes,” he said. “Zach. Please, please.” 

Zach started to laugh in earnest then, a wild laugh that scared Chris, put him in mind of knives and blood and every psychopath Zach had ever lent his likeness to. He took hold of Chris’s dick, jacking him faster. Chris was so close now; he felt on fire with it, and Zach was still fucking laughing. He bent low, lips to Chris’s ear. 

“No,” Zach said. 

“Huh?” 

Zach let go of Chris and slid his fingers out, wiping his fingers off on Chris’s thighs again unthinkingly. “No,” he said again. He smacked Chris’s bobbing dick lightly as if to drive the point home. He was still shaking with mirth. Chris’s throat tightened.

“Forget it,” Zach said, waving his hand like he was letting Chris off the hook, like he was offering to pick up the check or something. His eyes were bright. “Not tonight.” 

“But,” Chris sputtered. “But you said—“ Even as he spoke he could feel the crescendo dying away like a wave sucked back along the beach. His frustration had a panicky cast to it, and he shook his head frantically. “You _said._ ” 

Zach flopped alongside Chris, grabbed Chris’s face and turned him so they were nose to nose. Chris could smell something sweetish and organic he didn’t want to think about. 

“I changed my mind,” Zach said. “That’s the point, remember? _I_ changed _my_ mind.” His voice shook, and he let his head fall heavily against Chris’s. He gave a thready gasp and bucked once against Chris’s hip, spilling out his own orgasm on Chris’s stomach. Insult to injury, par for the fucking course with Zach. He licked up the side of Chris’s face and shoved his tongue into Chris’s ear. Chris had always hated that; the wet smack of it making him writhe with discomfort. He gripped the sheets to keep from lashing out involuntarily, in disgust and frustration and love. 

Zach kissed Chris’s cheek sloppily. “You’re nothing, baby,” he whispered sweetly, and Chris let out a sob. 

“Fuck you,” he muttered, eyes swimming. 

Zach giggled through the aftershocks, flush with whatever strange magic he drew from their sex. He pulled Chris against him into the wet spot. 

“Christ, Zach, I said I was cleaned up already,” Chris said. 

“And I said I didn’t fucking care,” Zach replied. “But go ablute, or whatever the fuck. Dinner’s cold by now anyway.” 

Chris sighed, sprawling back against the mattress instead, his head on Zach’s shoulder. He could feel the ire draining out of him. His dick was soft again, which Chris decided was fitting. He reached up and ran a finger over the key at Zach’s neck. The cage lay just out of arms reach. He nudged Zach, who appeared lost in some post-coital drowse. 

“Put it back on me,” he said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3 months later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for misogynist language in a roleplay context.

Chris was barely in the door before Zach was on him, yanking Chris’s messenger bag off his shoulder and tossing it to one side, shoving him up against the wall. He seemed larger than life somehow, but Chris thought that was just the surprise of it, the jolt of coming in after a boring, perfectly normal day on set only to be accosted by the frenetic bundle of energy that was Zach like this. He had a meeting today, Chris remembered, a big meeting. Whether it went well or not remained to be seen, not that that had any bearing on Zach’s preferences. This could be exuberance or it could be a drowning of sorrows. Things would still play out exactly the same way. 

Chris was wearing sweats, which he was nigh ecstatic about pulling on after a long day of excruciatingly fitted suits. Hot, obviously, but he’d put on fifteen pounds or so for this project and he felt perpetually unwieldy. That the suits got to live in wardrobe made things slightly better, but it didn’t change the fact that Chris hadn’t felt like himself for awhile now, and had started doing things like primarily wearing sweatpants in his downtime. Zach, on the other hand, had started doing things like shoving Chris up against the wall in the front hallway, yanking his sweats down with one hand and pressing Chris to the drywall with his free forearm. And fuck if Chris wasn’t freeballing—he’d always been a lazy motherfucker in his spare time. Zach took full advantage, dropping to his knees and shoving his face in the crease between Chris’s thigh and his balls. He took a deep and appraising whiff. His arm was still pinning Chris to the wall. 

“You smell like pussy,” Zach said by way of a greeting. 

“What the fuck, no I don’t.” 

“Yeah, you fucking do. Don’t fucking tell me what I can and and can’t smell, Pine. It’s that bitch from makeup, huh, the one who’s all up on you all the time.”

“Dude, can you back off? I’m tired, and—"

“And what? You just wanna go get in the shower? So I can’t smell her on you anymore, is that it? Can’t sniff out where you stuck your dick in the first wet pussy to come along? Jesus fuck, Pine, I have seen that girl from makeup. She’s a little rough, even for you.”

“Come on, man. That’s out of line.” 

Zach was up faster than Chris could blink. He got Chris by the face and wrenched him even so they were eye to eye. Chris worked his jaw against Zach’s hand, the muscles throbbing. “Zach,” he slurred. “Come on.” 

“Out of line,” he said, like he was tasting the words. “Huh. She know about you?” 

“Zach—" 

Zach giggled, a high manic sound that came out to play just often enough to chill Chris with its familiarity. “No, I’m _genuinely curious_ , Christopher. Does she know about your—your limp dick situation?” 

“God,” Chris moaned. “No, okay? Obviously not.” 

“Oh, is it obvious? I dunno. You sure you don’t have something to tell me? I’ve seen the way she looks at you. You sure you didn’t get her on that nasty couch in your trailer? I fucked you on it not two weeks ago and you drooled my come all over the seat. I bet you got her spread open on that fucking couch, shoved your face in there and ate her out good, got her whining for you. And then what happened? Hmm, Chris?”

“Dammit, c’mon, Zach, don’t make me—" 

“Don’t make you? You’re the one who can’t keep it in his pants. I won’t let you get off so you go nosing around anything that moves. It’s fucking sad, is what it is. So tell me.” 

“I—I tried,” Chris said, the words coming out in a rush. “It was like you said. I brought her back to my trailer, tried to—to fuck her.” 

“Yeah?” Zach had his own dick out now. He was hard as a rock, which he could be, and Chris felt envy clutch at his gut. Once it had been that easy. Once, Zach would have flipped him already and buried himself balls-deep, muttering all this filthy shit in his ear while he jerked Chris off. 

“Yeah, I, um…fuck, I wanted to. I’m not proud of it, but she—she tasted so good, Zach, and I wanted to fucking blast in her.”

“Blast in her, Jesus. You’re an idiot,” Zach said fondly. “You’d knock up half of L.A. if I left you to your own devices. So, what, you rubbed your cock all over, got it all slimy? Did it feel good?” 

“Fuck, yeah. It felt good. But I couldn’t—I couldn’t— _oh._ ”

Zach had dropped Chris’s now-sore jaw and leaned in, pressing his mouth to Chris’s neck and chewing at the flesh there. He took Chris’s dick in his fist, flopping him around like a fish. He’d been limp, sure, but under Zach’s hand, on the strength of his words, Chris could feel himself filling out. 

Zach made a disappointed noise. “Look at you. All it takes is my hand. Isn’t that right? Can’t get it up for anybody else, can you, try as you might.”

“Mmm.” 

_“That’s right, Zach.”_

Chris sighed. “That’s right. Zach.” 

“There we go,” Zach said. “I bet _she_ tried, though. Got her mouth all over you. Like this.” 

He dropped to the floor again, rubbing his cheek along the soft skin of Chris’s thigh. Just his breath was maddening, and Chris could feel that now-familiar discordance settling back in. The feeling dogged him nearly constantly now, like an itch. The only time it let up was when the two of them were apart, and for all Zach’s harping on some imaginary conquest the world outside had become a respite, the only place Chris wasn’t set squarely between arousal and hot, heady shame. If he and Zach hadn’t already spent a solid year conflating the two, things might have been slightly less challenging. But then, Chris always had enjoyed a challenge. And he’d already gone on record as not wanting this whole thing to be easy, so. Chris had to concede that there was something singularly disarming about a predicament for which he had only himself to blame.

Zach took Chris into his mouth and Chris let himself slump against the wall. Zach sucked him just long enough, then he let Chris’s dick flop wetly back against his thigh. 

“How fucking long has it been?” 

Chris swallowed. “Three months, Zachary.” 

“Three fucking months of this shit, Pine. Now I love your little accessory, don’t get me wrong.”

Here Zach looked up at Chris, brandishing the key he still wore at his neck. Chris didn’t wear the cage at work. Sometimes he wore it out; Zach loved nothing more than having Chris strap it on under his clothes, parading him through some filthy club where Chris knew either of them was perfectly capable of a one-off in the bathroom at the drop of a hat. Zach had threatened to make Chris do it, too, to make some poor dude try and get him hard in the cage. As yet, nobody else had seen it. For now, it was just for them, though Zach had some ideas to the contrary. 

“I love it,” Zach continued. “But don’t you think it’s a little fucking frustrating for me when all I want to do is play with this soft, sweet little cock and it has to go and get all hard on me?” 

He fit his mouth to Chris’s inner thigh again, and Chris moaned, swaying forward slightly. Zach bit him for his trouble, and Chris yelped, both hands flying to Zach’s head. It wasn’t a sexy little bite; it wasn’t a tease. It was the snap of a pissy dog, and once again Chris was reminded how quickly Zach could turn. He pinched Chris over the imprint of his teeth, gathering up the pale flesh there between thumb and forefinger and squeezing. 

_“Dammit,”_ Chris said, as the pain quelled any notion he might’ve ever had of getting hard. 

“Conditioning, baby,” Zach said. “Psych 101. Don’t tell me you didn’t dick off in the back of that class freshman year. Now, let’s try again, shall we?” 

Again, Chris got Zach’s mouth, and again, he began to harden. A parade of various unsavory images ran through his mind in an attempt to forestall the inevitable, but coupled with the hot rasp of Zach’s tongue they got all twisted up on themselves until Chris wasn’t sure what he was or wasn’t trying to accomplish. 

“For Christ’s sake,” Zach said tiredly, when Chris’s dick was heavy with blood. 

“I can’t help it,” Chris said. “It’s you, it’s what you do to me.” 

“It’s a good thing you look so pretty when you whine like that. Now get your ass in the bedroom and get on the bed.” 

Chris stepped out of his pants with a sigh and knelt to pick them up. He met Zach on the way, the two of them eye to eye for a moment before Chris looked down, demurring. Zach reached around and got him by the scruff of the neck. 

“Hey,” he said softly. 

“Hey,” said Chris, eyes on the floor. 

Zach pulled Chris to him and licked up the side of his cheek. Then he pushed away and rose as gracefully as ever, stalking off in the direction of the kitchen. “You want a beer?” he called, like they were just two regular people getting off work on a Thursday night. Just like that. 

In the bedroom, Chris dumped his clothes in the hamper and sat back on the bed. His cage was sitting on top of the dresser, milky-white against the rich, dark wood. Zach came in, a beer bottle in either hand. He saw the cage. He saw Chris looking at it. 

“You need a little help, baby?” He tucked one of the bottles in the crook of his elbow and took up the cage, tossing it softly onto the bed. “There you go.” 

Chris ran his fingers over the silicone. One might expect that the device would set his blood humming, bound up as it was in the business of sex. But as always, Chris felt a strange calm wash over him when he put the cage on. _I’m an island_ , he thought. Zach could wash over him with gale force, could tear at his shores however he liked. Chris could weather any of Zach’s storms and come out scoured and stronger on the other side. Zach would make it harder next time, but Chris reasoned that the net result was worth it. 

_I’m just trying to make you better,_ Zach said once. 

_Better for who?_ Chris had asked, even though he knew the answer. 

Zach took a swig of his beer and held Chris’s out to him, putting the bottle to his lips and tipping it back. Chris looked Zach in the face as he drank, the stout spreading out over his tongue like velvet. Zach’s expression was warm, and it made the stillness inside Chris spread out like a spill. He lay back on the bed. Zach set the beers on the nightstand and shrugged out of his shirt, stripped his pants off. 

“Can you—“ Chris gestured at the cage. 

Zach smiled, taking his necklace off with a practiced hand. “Of course,” he said. He fingered the little sliver lock for a moment before opening it and sliding it into place. He wrapped his hand around Chris, around the whole apparatus. He turned it to one side and then the other, inspecting carefully. 

“You know,” Zach said, “I guess a little disappointment is good for me too. After all, where would the fun be if this was easy. Am I right?” He slid up onto the bed, crawling onto Chris’s chest like to perch there like a demon. His weight pushed the air out of Chris’s lungs and pushed him down against the mattress. There wasn’t much give, and Zach felt like a ton of bricks atop him. 

Chris drew a shallow, shaky breath. “Zach,” he started. 

Zach rolled his neck in an easy circle, taking a contemplative sip of his beer. He unwound one leg and moved it down to the mattress so he could shift his weight, and Chris took advantage of the reduced pressure to gulp air greedily before Zach leaned back towards him. He palmed his dick. Chris could smell him. 

“And you’re not _so_ bad like this,” Zach said, tipping forward and smacking Chris’s cheek lightly with the head of his dick. “It makes you nice and cooperative, and who can say no to that. Now be good and open up for me.” 

He pinched at Chris’s nostrils a second later, heaving an irritated sigh. Chris felt a pang at that— _I was going to—_ but then that wasn’t the point, was it. His mouth popped open reflexively and he barely had time to suck in a thin lungful of hard-won air before Zach fed his dick in, shifting his body towards the headboard and really going for it, all the way down Chris’s throat til Chris’s nose rubbed up against Zach’s belly. 

“Oh, yeah,” Zach said, giving a moan of satisfaction. “Fucking take it.” 

Chris choked, and at the sound Zach pulled back in a mockery of concern Chris knew would be short-lived. Sure enough, he only pulled out long enough to give Chris another smack across the face, this one spit-soaked. Chris closed his eyes. 

“No,” Zach said. “Look.” He shoved back in and Chris set his jaw. At least the motion brought Zach up off of Chris’s sternum, but with one hand and most of his weight on the headboard and the other hand cradling the back of Chris’s skull, Zach had plenty of purchase to fuck his face. Chris had a decent handle on his gag reflex, but Zach was too fast for him and unwilling to accommodate any lapse in alacrity. So Chris gagged, choking on Zach’s dick, the muscles in his throat spasming around it as they tried to send it back the way it came. He moaned and Zach laughed, sounding pleased to be responsible for Chris’s discomfort. 

Chris’s own dick, ensconced in its cage, was mercifully soft. He could get hard in it, obviously, but it didn’t feel especially great. Sometimes Zach liked to capitalize on that fact, usually while plugging Chris’s ass with some evilly designed toy or other. But not now. Now, Chris’s pleasure or lack thereof seemed to be the furthest thing from Zach’s mind. He wasn’t looking at Chris anymore; his eyes had drifted closed, so Chris let his own follow suit. It was easier to focus that way, on the tightness in his jaw, on the drool that flowed out of his mouth and over his chin. He gagged again; there was something needful in it, the way his body wanted to give in to the reflex. It must feel good, because Zach tightened his fingers in Chris’s hair and drove in even deeper. Fitting, Chris thought, that Zach should take pleasure in his body’s attempt to repel him. He giggled, but with his mouth and throat stuffed full the sound was unrecognizable, a muffled croak. 

Zach was speaking now, muttering, talking nonsense the way he always did when he got close. “This hot mouth,” he said. “Goddamn, I love this fucking mouth so much. You take it like a whore, you know that? Buying you that cage was the best thing I ever did. Get you in that and all you want to do is lie there and get used.” 

He backed off just slightly, yanking Chris up by the shoulders to get a better angle. Then he took hold of Chris’s head with both hands and drove in as far as he could go, grinding Chris’s face into his body, smothering him with skin and hair and cock. Chris cried out, trying to wrench his head free to no avail. He scratched at the back of Zach’s thighs as he started to see stars.

Zach withdrew abruptly, leaving Chris sputtering in his wake. Chris gave a ragged gasp, sucking in precious oxygen. He wiped at his eyes as Zach’s hand took over where Chris’s throat left off, moving frenetically, his dick huge and slick.

“I should blindfold you, or wrap you in rubber so you can’t feel anything but that cage on your cock and me in your ass, your mouth. My hole, that’s all you are, my fucking hole, oh God—" 

He started to shoot and Chris scrambled, opening his mouth wider. But Zach seemed only minimally concerned with aim, so that Chris’s tongue was coated but his cheeks were too, his chin. Zach was breathing hard, whimpering to himself. Chris sat back and licked his lips, coming away with an alkaline mouthful. He grabbed for Chris’s face again, hands in his own come, fingers in Chris’s mouth. 

“Open it,” he was saying desperately. “God, _Chris._ ” 

Chris opened again, placidly. A hole. That worked, he thought. Any space, really, that Zach could fill. Zach ran his fingers reverently over Chris’s teeth, pressing down hard enough that it must hurt. Chris had the wild thought then that Zach would try to somehow crawl inside. In the moment, it seemed like a natural progression. But he didn’t. He just gave a long wet hack, drawing something up. Then he leaned over Chris’s waiting mouth and spit. 

It was thicker than the come, somehow, and unexpected. Chris gagged on it just like he had on Zach’s cock. Zach watched, his face exultant, and then he dragged Chris to him, rolled him underneath his body on the bed. Chris had a face full of soft bedding, and again today his right to breathe seemed to be more of a privilege conferred by Zach. He struggled. 

“No,” Zach said, whining like Chris had earlier. But he relented, and they lay there like that for a long time, the cage a reassuring weight between Chris’s legs and Zach’s come drying to a film on his face. Zach began to lick at it like a cat. 

“You going to eat me all up?”

“Mmm,” Zach hummed. “Don’t fucking tempt me.” He moaned. “You drive me crazy. Literally crazy. It scares me sometimes. In my more lucid moments, which this apparently is.” Chris turned his head just a little, so he could see Zach’s face. He was smiling, but there was an edge there too, a flintiness. He thought it seemed more familiar these days. 

“But not enough to stop,” Chris said. 

“No,” Zach said, kissing Chris sloppily on the chin. “Not enough to stop.”


End file.
